An intriguing drama is playing out in North Providence today -- the special election battle between interim mayor John Sisto, an ally of his predecessor, Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, and challenger Charles Lombardi. While the mayoral runoff is interesting in and of itself, another compelling element is how the Providence Journal has taken a backseat to other media in covering the story.

The New England mob is a pale imitation of its former self, as we know from recent reports by the ProJo's Bill Malinowski and WPRI's Tim White. Public interest in organized crime seems to remain high, though, so curious observers might want to check out Bringing Down The Mob, which received a positive review in yesterday's New York Times Book Review.

As predicted here, Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts turned out to be the Mystery Guest during the 34th Providence Newspaper Guild Follies. She did a bravura job, offering a scheming alter-ego version of herself, joined by chief of staff, 26-year-old "Paul Tencher," superbly played by Evan Kinnane, a lad of 11 or so, from Second Story Theatre.

-- Following up on my recent dispatch about the Buddy Cianci-Bruce Sundlun correspondence, WPRI's Tim White sat down with the former governor to get more of the details. In an 11 PM report last night, White detailed how Cianci's approximate day of release from the federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey, will be July 28 (unless he has an earlier departure for a halfway house or some similar destination).

Scott Mayerowitz, a smart, politically savvy standout among the young reporters at the Providence Journal, will be leaving to take a job with ABC News.

Mayerowitz, a 28-year-old Wesleyan grad who started at the ProJo as a two-year reporter-intern shortly after his graduation in 2000, says his new assignment will be doing Web-based reporting for the national business desk of ABC News

Andrew, Justin, Marc, and Don from Anchor Rising, Rhode Island's leading conservative blog, were kind enough to ask me to join them for dinner, and we enjoyed a lively, wide-ranging discussion last night at Hemenway's.

UPDATE: One of my astute media colleagues has come up with an even-better dark horse: John Celona, who has a little more than a week of freedom left before he is scheduled to be imprisoned.

One of the great Rhode Island events of the year is prevented, by statute, from taking place in Rhode Island. We speak of the Providence Newspaper Guild's annual Follies, which happens on the last Friday in February (in other words, two days from now) at the inimitable Venus de Milo in Swansea, Massachusetts.

Blogging continues to grow in new and fascinating ways. The New York Times had a good story yesterday about how the bloggers at Firedoglake have provided the most extensive coverage of the Scott Libby trial.

A few other odds and ends:

-- Seth Gitell, the astute former Boston Phoenix political reporter, had some kind words for Not for Nothing on his blog yesterday, saying, "Even though disgraced mayor, Buddy Cianci is still in federal prison, Rhode Island politics are still colorful.

Things have improved considerably at WRNI (1290 AM), Rhode Island's public radio station, since Jane Christo, the then-GM of the Boston-based WBUR Group, announced plans to sell it in 2004. Christo is long gone, and Boston University, which holds the license for WRNI, decided to maintain its affliliation with the station.

I quickly tire of wall-to-wall coverage in cases involving celebs, so it's not in my DNA to self-immerse in stories like that involving the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Writing in the New York Times, Caryn James pretty well nailed it:

Without any actual career to back up her claim on the public, the question becomes why did we watch? The unsettlingly vapid reason: because we could.

Although 1997, when the Dallas-based Belo Corporation bought the Providence Journal Company, was a whole different era in the media industry, the Journal Company's many TV stations -- and not the ProJo itself -- were the main attraction. It's not hard to see why: while newspapers, particularly one with a strong journalistic tradition like the Journal's, are prestigious properties to own, TV is where the big money is.

UPDATE:While Yorke is offering only a "no comment" in response to media inquiries, including one from me, DePetro sounded quite happy in a brief clip broadcast on WPRO. For those with an appreciation for irony, this lovefest will launch -- you guessed it -- on Valentine's Day, February 14.

Former WHJJ-AM talk-show host John DePetro has recently been seen at the Celona proceedings in US District Court, and now we know why